Chandigarh, May 1
The Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, has not yet revealed whether the former Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, is involved in any manner in the recruitment scandal pertaining to the Punjab Public Service Commission.
Replying to a question at a press conference here today, Capt Amarinder Singh said that the investigation was going on. Only after its completion, a clear picture would emerge. “I will only be able to tell whether Mr Badal is involved or not after the completion of the investigation,” said Capt Amarinder Singh.
It has been widely reported in the print media that at Mr Badal’s behest, the Chairman of the Punjab Public Service Commission, Mr Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu, who is in judicial custody at present, helped close relations of Mr Badal’s aides to get various posts. Confessions to this effect have been allegedly made by certain agents of Mr Sidhu.
Capt Amarinder Singh said the Vigilance Bureau had not conducted any raid to arrest any former Minister yet. He said “no former Akali Minister has been made a target so far”. Former Akali Ministers were seeking anticipatory bail out of their personal guilt complex, he added.
However, he made it clear that if any former Akali Minister was involved in any scam, he would have to face the music. “My government is determined to break the back of corruption in the state and the official machinery put on the job to cleanse public life will get to the bottom of very scam brought to its notice and arrest the culprits”, he asserted.
When told that the National Democratic Alliance was sending a team of its senior leaders to Punjab on a request made by Mr Badal, Capt Amarinder Singh said that such a team was welcome. “No injustice has been done to anyone. The government has only made corrupt people its target. It would be good if the NDA team goes through the corruption cases exposed by my government in the past few weeks. Only then will it come to know about the extent of corruption during the tenure of the Badal government in Punjab,” he added.
He said the Vigilance Bureau was doing a good job. It would continue to pursue all cases. There was no proposal to hand over any inquiry to the CBI at any stage. The Additional Director-General of Police, Mr A.P. Pandey, who was heading the bureau at present, had been told to take more staff for handling the workload.
The Congress had made three promises before the elections. First, good governance; second fight against corruption; and third, renewal of Punjab’s economy. For good governance, officers competent to implement the government’s policies and programmes had been given important positions.
He said all 300-odd employees, including teachers and doctors, who were absent from duty during special raids conducted by Vigilance Bureau teams would be charge-sheeted. He said that during the third round of raids, absenteeism had come down to 4 per cent from 25 per cent in the first round in schools and hospitals in the rural areas.
The government had already given supervisory powers, including checking the attendance of teachers and doctors in villages, to panchayats. The panchayats had been told to submit reports about the attendance of employees in government institutions in their respective villages to the Deputy Commissioner concerned, who had been told take quick action on the reports.
The downsizing of the
administrative set-up had started. The government wanted to save Rs 500 crore by doing so. He said that the right to jobs of many handicapped persons had been snatched by the Panchayati Raj Department during the tenure of the previous government. A case had already been registered in this connection. He said he had a lot to say about the PPSC recruitment scam and the scrapping of the selections made by the commission, but as the matter was sub judice, it would not be proper to talk about it.
There was no proposal to wind up the Punjab Health Systems Corporation, he added. He admitted that the postings of doctors and other medical staff should be done with care. Surgeons should be posted in those hospitals where the infrastructure for operations was available.
